Peter O’Toole Monologues

Words are important.

If you cannot say what you mean, Your Majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.

The Emperor has been a prisoner in his own palace since the day that he was crowned, and has remained a prisoner since he abdicated. But now he's growing up, he may wonder why he's the only person in China who may not walk out of his own front door. I think the Emperor is the loneliest boy on Earth.It is true, Your Majesty. Many heads have been chopped off. It does stop them thinking.

It is true, Your Majesty. Many heads have been chopped off. It does stop them thinking.

It would be conveniently sad if he becomes blind. To the expense, Your Excellency. To the cost of maintaining one thousand two hundred eunuchs, three hundred and fifty ladies-in-waiting and one hundred and eighty-five cooks to buying a hundred and twenty sable furs a month and three thousand chickens a week. To the fact that eight hundred and forty guards and employees of the household department, plus one Lord Chamberlain, care only about one thing! Filling their own rice bowls!

Your Majesty, in my country, it would be usual to begin with some kind of an examination.

You're still my enemy tonight. But even enemies can show respect.

I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.

I know my country better than the Greeks, I think.

Do you really think death frightens me now? I watched my eldest son die, watched you drag his body behind your chariot. Give him back to me. He deserves a proper burial, you know that. Give him to me.

When you were very young, you came down with scarlet fever. Your little hand was so hot. The healer said you would not last the night. I went down to Apollo's temple, and I prayed until the sun came up. That walk back to the palace was the longest of my life. When I went into your mother's room, and you were sleeping in her arms, your fever had broken. I promised that day to dedicate my life to the gods, I will not break my promise. For 30 years I have worked for peace, *thirty* years. Paris is a fool sometimes, I know that, but I will fight a thousand wars before letting him die.

I've fought many wars in my time. Some I've fought for land, some for power, some for glory. I suppose fighting for love makes more sense than all the rest.

I have heard rumors of your beauty. And for once, the gossip is right.

I knew your father. He died well before his time. But he was fortunate enough to not have lived long enough to see his son fall.

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves, will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?

I loved my boy from the moment he opened his eyes until the moment you closed them.

I killed two people. One was... yesterday? He was just a boy and I led him into quicksand. The other was... well, before Aqaba. I had to execute him with my pistol, and there was something about it that I didn't like.

There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians.

My friends, we have been foolish. Auda will not come to Aqaba. Not for money...

…for Feisal…

...nor to drive away the Turks. He will come... because it is his pleasure.

I'm not hurt at all. Didn't you know? They can only kill me with a golden bullet.

So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.

My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer!

My lord, I think… I think your book is right. 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now!

I pray that I may never see the desert again. Hear me, God.

I cannot fiddle but I can make a great state of a small city.

The truth is: I'm an ordinary man. You might've told me that, Dryden.

The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me.

A thousand Arabs means a thousand knives, delivered anywhere day or night. It means a thousand camels. That means a thousand packs of high explosives and a thousand crack rifles. We can cross Arabia while Johnny Turk is still turning round, and smash his railways. And while he's mending them, I'll smash them somewhere else. In thirteen weeks, I can have Arabia in chaos.

No, they're still there, but they've no boots. Prisoners, sir. We took them prisoners; the entire garrison. No, that's not true. We killed some; too many, really. I'll manage it better next time. There's been a lot of killing, one way or another.

Cross my heart and hope to die, it's all perfectly true.